Previous research indicates that young children, as young as preschoolers, spontaneously draw dihedral and cyclic symmetries in their representations of the natural world. This is an intriguing find because at this age children have barely had their first contact with formal geometry and, therefore, one would not expect to find a use of symmetries…

The transformative agenda of sustainability education constitutes the focus of early-years education. In quality sustainability educational projects, children are supported to draw links between nature and society and relate to the studied phenomena. Is this methodological approach realized in educational programs for the early years? The present…

This paper proposes that the future is uncertain for many children. Both natural and human-made disasters are adversely affecting the lives of millions of children and their families. An example of an environment-related disaster is cited from Sichuan Province, China, where a massive earthquake killed some 70,000 people in 2008. How the teachers…

Understanding how children experience life in educational settings should be an imperative for educational practitioners, evaluators, and researchers. Listening to children's points of views would facilitate the development of educational settings that meet the needs of children and contribute to their wellbeing and development so that their…

Digital technologies have material and social properties that have the potential to create new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. The presence and development of oral narratives in young children's visual art-making on paper has been noted in previous research, but little is known about the narratives children create when they…

In order to co-construct a better understanding of the nature of children's art experiences at home and in educational settings, I interacted with four young children who photographed and discussed their art experiences over the course of one year. As a result of these research processes, and considering John Dewey's (1934/2005) "Art as…

This report outlines the cognitive accomplishments of young children involved in graphic dialogue with adults. A token of collaborative drawing is examined exhibiting the degree to which adult informed tutoring enabled children in their drawing development, enhanced their motivation and ability in narration and resulted in drawings meaningful to…

Digital technologies have the potential to offer new opportunities for children's expressive arts practices. Although adult expectations surround and shape children's visual art making on paper in the early years classroom, such expectations are not so established in relation to digital art making. So how do children make sense of digital art…

Researchers have suggested that a paucity of research exists on refugee youth in early childhood education settings. Arguing that children's stories provide educators a valuable resource for understanding the meaning children make of initial cross-cultural experiences, this article presents a narrative inquiry into the stories and artwork of three…

The purpose of the study is to find out what a group of seven-year-old South African children understand of their internal anatomy. The research is based on the premise that young children obtain most of their science knowledge through personal experience. Drawings are used to determine the level of young children's knowledge of systems and…

Do world children draw nature pictures in a certain way? Range of mountains in the background, a sun, couple clouds, a river rising from mountains. Is this type of drawing universal in the way these nature items are organized on a drawing paper? The sample size from Czech Republic included 33 participants from two kindergartens. They were 5 and 6…

In this article, I will examine the use of picture books as a means of supporting the intellectual pursuits of young children. Theoretical frameworks will be discussed as they pertain to the integration of these books in the Municipal Infant Toddler Centers and Preschools of Reggio Emilia and Pistoia, Italy. The pedagogical framework of these…

A day-care centre is a place where a child spends most of his/her week nowadays. A day-care centre as an institution of early childhood education has often been studied from the early childhood educators' point of view or within a wider societal context. The children's voices have not been heard much. The purpose of this article is to describe, on…

The cultural components of drawing allow one to consider it a symbolic form of cultural communication. The behavioural and cognitive mechanisms involved in the cultural transmission of symbolic communications are situated in an environment embedded in cultural-historical features that should be taken into account, as they give rise to variations…

The present study assessed if children would present different information in their drawings of emotion eliciting stimuli when they believed that an adult or a child audience would view their drawings. Seventy-five 6-year-olds (44 boys and 31 girls) were allocated to three groups: the reference group, the child audience group and the adult…